For those who have not signed up for our monthly newsletter, we've actually featured Jess (one of our forum moderators) last March!

We're republishing her article in here though so don't you worry!

A Day in the Life of the Almost Invisible Forum Moderator

Hello.

I’m Jess and I’ve been a BabyPips.com forum moderator for over two years now. If you’ve been an active member on the forums but have not heard of me, don’t worry, that’s understandable. I’m the forum lurker type since I like to keep it low-key and don’t really participate much in forum conversations. That doesn’t mean I’m less of a moderator though. In fact, that even makes me more mysterious and more… surprising!

So what’s it like doing my job?

Six times a week I read through pages upon pages of forums posts looking for something that would excite me. A spammer or a troll would be a very good candidate. The fun starts when I sense a flame war about to erupt or when my phone starts going off because of forum reports.

Keeping forum threads clean without any trace of spammers, trolls or marketers is strangely, my source of happiness and accomplishment. But it’s not easy as you’d think it is.

Giving infractions to keep a thread clean is one helluva tough decision-making job. I have to check out their forum history, the types of posts they’ve been publishing and the report (or in some cases boatloads of ‘em) that was sent in. Flame wars are the toughest just because they’re highly subjective. One wrong move and all hell will break loose. And if that happens, I’ll end up getting hate mail for the next 7 years!

When things start going haywire, first thing I do is close the thread. I then send PMs to the people involved to try to calm them down. Sometimes it’s like talking to a group of toddlers who are pointing fingers at each other claiming ‘it’s his fault!’ On better days, I’ll get a friendlier, more understanding response. That’s when I can really go all out and smile like this:

The best thing about handling the BabyPips.com forum is how I continuously learn from it. Within the last 2 years, aside from memorizing the forum rules and infractions, I have also successfully developed my decision making skills. It’s definitely getting sharper. Thanks to this job, I can now decide what to eat for lunch without having to ask my mom or anybody willing to decide for me!* That’s progress right there! Ha!

In addition to that, I can now work under minimum supervision (Pipcrawler can now go on dates without me constantly calling or texting him). I’ve also learned many things just from reading forum posts. From the more technical forex topics like the Fibonacci method to corny jokes about marriage — there’s really a lot for anyone to absorb in there. On some days I can even tell what the weather is like in Malaysia or in the UK without having to check my weather app.

Being a BabyPips.com moderator is tough and easy at the same time. I know that’s strange statement to make but you’ll probably only understand it if you’re doing my job.

But unfortunately, I love my job so you’ll just have to settle with reading about it! You can always ask me to tell you more stories though… for a special price!

If you want to say hi one of these days, go visit me on the BabyPips.com Forums! I like chit-chatting too sometimes! It’s a good break from constantly having to deal with trolls and spammers.

*I am joking of course. I actually have my meals planned out for the next three months!